Richard Scarry

Richard Scarry was born on June 5, 1919, in Boston. As a kid, he loved art (he took painting classes at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston) and hated school (he took five years to graduate high school).

He served in the army in World War II as an art director, editor, and writer for the Morale Services Section of Allied Forces HQ. After the war, he moved to New York to pursue a career as an artist. In 1949 he met actress-slash-author Patricia Murphy at a party. Within two weeks they were MARRIED. They had a son and called him Huck.

In 1955, Scarry illustrated Jane Werner's book, Smokey the Bear. This story would become the national fire safety icon we all know and love. Smokey looks the way he does today because of how Richard Scarry drew him fifty years ago.

Scarry illustrated a lot of stuff through the 50s, but it was all other people's work until 1963, when The Best Word Book Ever was published. It was written and illustrated by him, and was an immediate success. He went on to create about three hundred more books for kids, I'm not sure you heard me, THREE HUNDRED.

Scarry didn't use a lot of text in his books - most of the words are used as labels on pages packed full of detailed pictures. He used animals as protagonists to avoid racial and gender stereotyping. He's gotten some bad press about gender bias, though - people get upset that, in his illustrations, the women always wear dresses. However, a. they're animals. The only reason you think it's a girl animal is that she's wearing a dress; b. big fucking deal. Same people who try to sue over the bathroom door symbol having a skirt on.

He lived with his family in New York and Connecticut for almost twenty years before moving to Europe. Scarry had a home and studio in Switzerland, and a house in France. He enjoyed skiing, hiking, traveling, and boating. He died of a heart attack in Gstaad, Switzerland on April 30, 1994.

The recurring policeman in his illustrations does not carry a gun.

Quotes:

"The greatest compliment I can receive is to be told that some of my books are held together with more Scotch tape than there is paper in the original book."

Books:

(note: most of these, properly titled, have "Richard Scarry's" appended to the front of them, as in, "Richard Scarry's Best little Word Book."